Letter to the editor: Lawmakers should include e-cigarettes

A smoker puffs on an e-cigarette.

H.F. 2109 will soon be considered by the Iowa Senate. This bill essentially serves to exempt e-cigarettes from existing Iowa tobacco control law under the guise of protecting youths.

Kudos to those 22 legislators in the House who saw through the smokescreen and voted to oppose it. The policy solution to address e-cigarettes would be to add them to Iowa's existing tobacco control law. If it looks like a cigarette and is manufactured by cigarette companies, shouldn't it be defined as such?

If the Legislature wants to keep Iowa's youth from becoming addicted to tobacco products, it should adequately fund the Iowa Department of Public Health's Division of Tobacco Use, Prevention and Control to the recommended level of $30.1 million. For fiscal year 2014, the division receives a mere 17% of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation to achieve the following:

? Close the casino loophole in Iowa's Smokefree Act, which prohibits tobacco use in indoor public and private workplaces.